


Dual Eclipse

by TheSylphOfHeart



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Ladystuck 2020, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23642689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSylphOfHeart/pseuds/TheSylphOfHeart
Summary: Rose meets Kanaya under stressful circumstances.
Relationships: Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22
Collections: Ladystuck Art/Fic Exchange 2020





	Dual Eclipse

Rose trudged up the long staircase leading up to the second floor of the dingy apartment complex. Her suitcase banged against each step as she dragged it behind her. The wheels on her suitcase left two dark streaks of mud on the carpet as she moved. At the top of the staircase, was a dimly lit hallway. Rose briskly walked up to the first door on the right. She went to knock before stopping herself. She had realized that she wasn’t positive this was the right apartment. She dug into her coat pocket hoping to find the address on her phone. She tried to turn it on to no avail, suddenly remembering that her uncharged phone was on the long list of things she was currently irritated about.

As she placed her phone back into her pocket she noticed that her coat was dripping rainwater onto the carpet. She did not want to be seen by anyone she didn’t absolutely have too, so she put her ear up to the door and listened for any sort of noise coming from the apartment. She could hear shuffling, and she heard a loud voice saying something she couldn’t quite understand over the sound of a song she recognized as one of Dave’s. This was most certainly the correct apartment.

Rose knocked loudly on the door. There was a long pause, and then the music turned off. The door swung open, and there was Dave. Rose pushed past him into the apartment. She tossed her boots into the corner next to the door. “I see that city life has been treating you well” Dave said, hanging Roses discarded jacket up on one of the hooks near the door. Rose loudly sucked in her breath. She went over and flopped down on the small, puke green couch in the apartment's living room.

“Are you okay?” Dave asked.

Rose tried to think of something snarky to say, but decided against it. “Give me a moment”.

She listened as Dave walked off into one of the other rooms. She turned over onto her stomach and screamed into one of the throw pillows. Once her throat was thoroughly destroyed she flipped back over and began to take deep and long breaths. Things were bad. Her school was closed, and she had no idea how she was going to complete her coursework online. She had lost her job working at a local bookshop that had not been doing well before all of this, so Rose was almost certain she wouldn't have a job to go back to. And to top things off, her roommate had fucked up making soup so bad that the fire marshall had told them that they could not stay there without inhaling a possibly fatal amount of smoke. And that was why Rose had spent the last four hours taking a series of uber rides over to spend quarantine, not in the cozy bedroom she had set up in her apartment, but in her brother's apartment with his two roommates.

Rose would not, could not, cry, especially not with someone just one room over. She did however, wrap herself up in one of the warm blankets next to her. She took a moment to peer out the door leading out to the apartment's balcony. The city was lit up. Rose looked for the moon.  
When she was twelve, she had taken the time to memorize the phases and movements of the moon. She would sit out on her deck, each night, and she would pay attention to the phase and where it was in the night sky. Rose looked exactly where she thought the moon should have been. She was far from home now, and out of practice. The moon was much higher than she had thought it would be. The sky was overcast and the moon abruptly disappeared behind the sea of clouds. This disappearance made Rose even angrier. She was so stressed and so tired..  
Once she had her heart rate back under control, she walked over to the room Dave had gone to and knocked on the door. Dave opened it, and Rose felt a twinge of guilt for being so curt when entering the apartment. He was smiling, and seemed excited to see her for the first time since that fall. The siblings formally greeted each other with a fistbump, and then Dave moved aside, so Rose could see his roommate.

“Rose, meet Karkat. Karkat, this is Rose”. Rose watched as Karkat briefly looked up from his laptop to wave at her. Rose waved back.  
“Yeah, he’s watching Grease for the third time this week, so don’t expect much from him for the next,” Dave leaned back to look at Karkats laptop, “45 minutes.” Karkat groaned and pulled the laptop closer to his chest.

Rose spent the next few hours talking to Dave. Every once in a while, Karkat would chime in with either a snide remark about Dave, or commentary about what was going on in his movie. Eventually Karkat fell asleep at his desk, and Rose decided she needed some sleep as well. Dave grabbed her some blankets and a pillow and set it out for her on the couch.  
“Kanaya, my other roommate is going to be home late. She's usually very quiet though, so you probably won’t even notice.” Dave said, while closing the curtains in the living room and kitchen.

Rose slowly drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep. When Kanaya was back, Rose very much did notice. She first woke up when she heard the sound of someone trying and failing for a few moments to get the door unlocked. Then she heard the door squeak open, slam shut and then the heavy sound of footsteps rushing towards the door across the hall from Dave and Karkat's room. Rose considered getting up to greet this Kanaya, but quickly decided against it when she heard the sound of a drawer slamming.

The next time Rose woke up, it was because of the searing light spilling into the apartment, and stinging her eyes. Rose looked up to find a woman, who she assumed was Kanaya, standing on the balcony. Rose watched Kanaya as she stood in the bright sunlight. Kanaya was surrounded by a large collection of plants sitting out on the balcony with her. Rose watched the way Kanaya carefully looked over each plant.  
A few moments later Kanaya turned around and entered the apartment. The couch creaked as Rose sat up. Kanaya whirled around to face her with wide eyes.

Rose laughed a little as Kanaya stared at her bewildered "Hello, I'm Rose" she said.

Kanaya took Rose's hand and shook it vigorously "I'm so sorry I completely forgot that you were here.” Kanaya turned around to close the curtain. "I am so sorry for waking you. You must be exhausted from everything that went on yesterday. Dave told me all about it. I've been a bit frazzled as of late. This is so rude of me, I'll get out of your way".  
Rose quickly stood up. "No, don't worry about it. I usually wake up this early anyways," Rose lied. " You can keep the curtain open too. The light is nice."

Kanaya took a deep breath and became visibly more calm. "Alright then, the boys will be asleep until at least eleven. Feel free to help yourself to anything in the fridge. I have to go do some work in my room. I'll see you later. Kanaya gave Rose a sheepish smile, and then quickly retreated to her room.

Rose tried and failed to get back to sleep. When she heard her stomach growl, she went over to the kitchen to make herself something to eat.. She opened the fridge to find the first shelf filled with half empty takeout containers. The second shelf had some snack items, a couple cheese sticks, some oranges, and a large can of spray cheese. On the bottom shelf there was nothing but three apple juice boxes, an empty box of what used to contain canned coffee, and a gallon of strawberry milk. Rose decided on a cheese stick, and an orange. She walked back to the couch and began to scroll through the emails on her now charged phone. She had ten from her school. Every one of them said the same thing. The school was keeping up with the situation. Things were uncertain. Rose rested her head in her hands. She had the feeling that this was going to be a long couple of weeks.

The next time Rose saw Kanaya was just after Dave and Karkat finally woke up. Dave groggily put some of the spray cheese on an untoasted piece of white bread. Karkat angrily complained about the apartment's lack of coffee. As soon as the both of them started talking, Kanaya exited her room. Rose examined Kanaya's bright outfit. She was dressed up in an outfit that was both unique and incredibly formal. Rose couldn’t think of any other students she knew who would wear an outfit like this on the weekend. When Kanaya clapped her hands together and began to speak, Rose thought it might be to announce she was going out somewhere

Instead Kanaya said. "I was temporarily laid off from my job last night,” Karkat opened his mouth, but Kanaya continued, “It’s alright. This morning I made a plan for groceries, so we only have to leave one at a time.” Kanaya explained her comprehensive plan for getting through quarantine. Rose tried her best to pay attention, but gave up about five minutes in, so she could reread her university's email.

The first few weeks of being trapped inside the little apartment went as well considering the circumstances. Rose had become fast friends with Kanaya. Rose had taught Kanaya how to knit, and Kanaya had in turn taught Rose how to do some basic stitches on the sewing machine. Kanaya was amused by the fact that Rose didn’t care if what she was knitting fit or turned out right. She simply knit for the sake of knitting. Rose was impressed by the way Kanaya carefully planned out each of her designs. Every piece was intricate, and every stitch was perfectly even. Rose had watched Kanaya making a beautiful orange dress. It had thin yellow swirls running along each seam. On the chest was a gorgeous yellow sun. Rose had been inspired to think up her own project. Maybe something purple, and about the moon.

Rose had also found that they both shared a passion for reading. Kanaya had let Rose borrow from her extensive collection of vampire novels. They were absolutely atrocious. So atrocious in fact, that Rose realized that Kanaya was the kind of person that might appreciate one of Rose’s own side projects. Kanaya appreciated the story much more than anyone in Roses peer critique group would have. Rose had gotten used to getting up at the same time as Kanaya, and the two of them spent their mornings talking about books and life in general, over tea. These conversations had quickly turned romantic in nature, and under other circumstances they might have pursued some sort of relationship. They were stuck together in a small apartment though, and despite Rose's willingness to take a chance, she could tell that Kanaya was acutely aware that if a relationship went wrong it would make things a lot more miserable than they already were.

The third week was when the problems started. There was still no concrete information from Rose’s school. Her financial aid would be messed up if she missed a semester. Her former boss had sent her a message letting her know that although the business had received enough help to survive this, they would have to cut back on their number of employees considerably. To make matters worse, her roommate had sent her an email, notifying her that she should start looking for someone else to split rent with. Rose hadn’t touched any of her writing projects in a while. She knew that her teachers would expect her to spend this time editing, but she didn’t care anymore. She had stopped thanking her professors for the update emails, she had stopped picking up calls from her family, she had sent out a message looking for new roommates, but hadn’t bothered to check for any replies since. Rose found herself startled by the bad habits that were returning to her. She felt more trapped than she had felt in a very long time.

On the other hand, Kanaya had grown very irritable. It all started when she found out that the place she found out that the craft store she had been working at was closing its doors for the time being. Kanaya agreed with the decision, but found herself absolutely restless. Rose watched Kanaya pace back and forth across the apartment. Kanaya called each member of her family a couple times a day to check in. She also frequently called her boss for any updates. She had tried to get material to make masks, but the stores were out of cloth. With nothing to do, Kanaya had taken to watching the news religiously, looking for any sign that things might be getting better. She just wanted to fix things. She wanted her friends, and family, and coworkers to be safe. Kanaya's worry was slowly rubbing off on the others. Everyone had begun to keep to themselves.

By the fifth week, things were starting to get unbearable. Rose spent most of her time sleeping facedown on the couch or hate-reading some of her less than perfect writing. Today, Rose was zoned out facing the TV which was playing reruns of shows from the Home Shopping Network. Kanaya was busy undoing and redoing a set of stitches on an old shirt of hers she was trying to repurpose. Kanaya's phone rang, and she nearly pushed her sewing machine off the table to get to it. She sat and listened to the recorded message on the other end before ending the call. Rose looked up at Kanaya and saw that she was shaking.

“Are you alright?” Rose asked.

Kanaya whirled around to face her “I might not finish school this year.” and then she said in a soft voice that was a little confused, and a little accusatory, “How are you so calm about all of this. Don’t you care?”

Rose turned of the TV. “I wouldn’t use the word calm to describe how I’m feeling about this, and at least I’m not destroying my immune system by worrying about things I can’t control.” Rose was ready to go on, but Kanaya was already sitting down on the couch next to her.

“I shouldn't have said that. I’m sorry.”

Rose looked at her for a moment, “I know. This is really hard, and,” Rose thought for a moment, trying to figure out something that might make things a little better. “Let's focus on something else for a minute”

“Maybe on something we actually can control.” Kanaya said standing up. “My plants need watering. It's' something to do.”

“That sounds great,” Rose replied. She opened the door leading out to the balcony. The city was filled with an eerie silence. A few cars went by down below and Rose could see a grey pigeon soaring overhead. Kanaya walked up beside her and set a full watering can on the balcony next to Rose. Kanaya had a second watering can in her own hand.

Once all of the plants had been watered Kanaya showed Rose how to deadhead some of the flowers. They got down on their knees and took turns pulling crumpled blossoms from the plants.

As they worked, there was a break in the clouds overhead. The sun was warm on their faces, and for just a moment, it felt nice to be outside. When the sun disappeared once again Rose felt as Kanaya leaned into her side.

Kanaya stopped pulling flowers off the plants for a moment and turned to Rose. “Thank you for this. It was a good suggestion” Then, Kanaya reached over Rose and picked a healthy yellow flower. She brushed her hand against Rose's cheek as she tucked the flower behind Rose’s ear. “There’s a really nice cafe a few blocks down. I would like to take you there when it opens again.”

Rose beamed back at Kanaya, “I’m already looking forward to it”.


End file.
